The Marvelous Misadventures of a Handyman!
by cheezburgerlover
Summary: A G-mod story about a man who gets paid for what we all do on Gmod: Kill, build and destroy! Chapter 8 is now up.
1. GmConstruct: Getting at the Watermelon

_**Location:**_

_**gmflatgrass**_

_**Discalimer: (And my first one at that.) I don't own Garry's Mod. Garry Newman and his team does.**_

I sat back and sighed. Nothing ever happened on this map. The weather never changed, it was always 62 degrees with overcast skies. Flat grass stretched on for about a mile each way from the concrete platform in the middle of the map that I was sitting on. And at the edges of the map were invisible walls. So far today, I hadn't gotten any requests for my services.

What are my services, exactly? I am a handyman. Maybe even a hitman. People will call me if they need something fixed or something heavy lifted or some war machine built or an annoying neighbor terminated. I could do it all. They would just fill out a form and send it to me, and I would get there as soon as I could and do whatever they needed. I had several weapons, a gravity gun, a physgun, and a toolgun with multiple functions like creating winches and creating motors.

But no one needed help so far today. I stared at my computer, which had a fireworks screen saver. I drank a bit of cherry soda and tossed it into a trash can.

Suddenly, my computer stopped screen saving. A message appeared on the screen. It read, "One Request from map gmconstruct. Urgent Action required." I clicked on the message.

If anyone needed my services, they would have to send me a form with their signature, agreeing that I could not be held liable for any lost, damaged, burned, minced or shot up property. The form also said that I was not responsible for shooting someone if I got annoyed at them. The form appeared on the screen, signed by a man named John. I then read the details of his request.

"Err... so... I need help opening my refrigerator cause, uhh, there's a watermelon inside. I marked this urgent cause I'm really hungry so if you could come over and open my refrigerator that'd be nice." I really wanted to skip this request because it was stupid, but the ad I sent out read, "No request is too ridiculous!" So, skipping it would ruin my reputation.

I slipped on my special sleeve over my right arm. It had four buttons. One read "Entities", one read, "Props", one read "NPCs", and one read, "Home". I also grabbed my toolgun, which would allow me to create winches and ropes and sliders, etc.

An icon on my computer's desktop read "Go to". I double clicked on the icon. I typed "gmconstruct" in the text box and pressed "Enter".

A message on the computer read, "Sending you to gmconstruct." I stood up and walked away from my desk. A breeze started to pick up. It gradually grew stronger. It grew so strong that I was lifted off the ground. It blew me upwards, toward the top of the map. I looked up. A small opening had appeared on the top of the map. I was blown toward it. The wind blew me right into the hole. The world went white.

The word "LOADING" appeared in front of me in the whiteness. After about half a minute, it disappeared and the world came back again.

This time, I was in gmconstruct. I was right outside a low building. A man was waiting right inside the building. It was more like a dark room, actually.

"You came! Great! So can you open my fridge?" The man asked.

"Uh-huh." I walked inside the building/room.

I saw a mattress in the corner of the room. By the mattress was a nightstand with a lamp and a beer bottle on it. On the mattress was a shotgun. There was also a trash can and a desk with a chess board on it. A refrigerator stood by the desk.

"So you say there's a watermelon inside the fridge?"

"Uh... yeah."

I walked up to the fridge and pulled on the handle. It wouldn't budge. I got out my crowbar and stuck it between the door of the fridge and the opening. I tried to pry it open, but the door still would not move. I examined it closely.

"Wait a second. This door is glued shut!" I exclaimed.

"Is it?" The man asked.

"Yes! I'm gonna have to melt the glue and then remove it all. So that'll be about 100 garry dollars. Fork it over." I held out my hand.

"Geez. For that price, I can just starve to death!" The man took 100 garry dollars out of his pocket. The bill had a picture of an unsmiling man. Under his picture it read, "Garry Newman." I grabbed it and put it in my pocket.

"Good. Now, I'm going to melt the glue. I pushed a few buttons on my toolgun until it read, "Ignite". I pointed the toolgun at the fridge and fired. A blue ray of electricity fired out of the gun. It hit the fridge and marked an "X" on it. The fridge burst into flames.

"Whoa! What the hell are you doing?"

"Melting the glue."

"You're gonna melt my fridge!"

I ignored his pleas for me to put out the fire. Finally, after it burned for a while, I shot another burst of electricity from my toolgun, putting out the fire. The glue was very oozy now. I quickly opened the door to the fridge so as not to burn my hand. I looked inside the fridge. Nothing.

"You liar!" I yelled at the man. "You no-good liar!" I whipped out my revolver and shot him in the head. That was incredibly satisfying. And he did sign a contract.

I pushed the Home button on my sleeve. As I was blown towards the opening in the sky, I realized I could have just spawned another watermelon. Oh, well. My bad.

--

I found myself sitting at my desk again. While I was gone, another request had been sent to me.

"One Request from map d1town01. Urgent Action required." Ravenholm! What could be going on there? The message from the help requester explained partly what was going on.

"Help! The neighborhood kids are extremely bored! They are all doing horrible things! Come now!" The forms and crap like that had been signed by a "Linda."

I sighed and sent myself to Ravenholm.

_**To Be Continued!**_

(Well, I have been aching to write a G-mod story for a while now. First installment, hope it goes well!)


	2. d1town01: Stopping a Rebellion

_**Stopping a Rebellion**_

(Check out the poll I put on my profile!)

After the loading was finished, I found myself outside a wooden hallway. In front of me was a dead lawn with a dead tree. A few crows saw me and flew away, squawking like mad. I shot one down just for the hell of it.

A woman was standing anxiously in the field. "Oh, thank God you came when you could! The kids... they were so bored they began terrorizing the town! They set up all these traps and started killing people! Can you help?"

"Wait... what? The kids are killing people? So you want me to go kill them? What do you want?"

"Oh, heavens no! Don't kill the children! Just create something to keep them occupied and convince them to stop this reign of terror!"

"And if that doesn't work, I'll kill them all."

"But-"

"No buts. That's how I roll. Now, where are they?"

"They set up little platforms all over the city, and they shoot anyone and everyone. They even burnt a few buildings!"

"These little buggers have GUNS?!"

"Yes, and their leader likes to insult people. Why, he called me three names, all somehow calling me a-"

"Person who pleases people for money?"

"To say it nicely."

"All right, I'll go deal with it."

I pulled out my toolgun and set it to spawn dynamite. I made my way through buildings while spawning dynamite on the floors and ceiling. I went through a few buildings and was about to walk through a doorway when I saw a tiny cable stretching across the doorway. I stood back and threw my shotgun at the cable. As soon as the shotgun hit the cable, a blade swung across the doorway. If I had crossed the cable, I would have been beheaded. Smart kids.

I picked up my gun and kept going. I came to one of the platforms that the woman had described. It was built overlooking the street. A kid was standing on it, facing the opposite direction from me.

I climbed up the pipe of the building and snuck up behind him. I switched my weapon to a pistol and grabbed him from behind. I shoved the pistol against his head and covered his mouth.

"MMMPPHHH! MMPH MMMPH!" He yelled.

"Shut up. Where is your leader?"

He pointed to a tall apartment complex across the street. In one of the windows was some graffiti. It read, "Kidz rool!"

I knocked the kid across the head with my pistol, knocking him out.

I ran across the street to the door of the building that held the kid leader. Still spawning dynamite, I used my physgun to rip the the door out of the frame. I ran up the stairs to the sixth floor, watching out for traps.

Sure enough, I saw that the floorboards in front of me looked weak. I knelt down and punched the floor in front of me. My fist went right through the wood. I peeked through the hole my fist had made and shone my flashlight down.

If I had stepped on the floorboards, I would have fallen six stories to my death.

I took a huge step across that area and got myself onto hard ground again. I found that one of the doors had some graffiti written on it. It read, "Ur mom is a **CENSORED**".

This was definitely the leader's room. I knocked on the door.

The door opened. The kid looked about 13 years old, wearing a long t-shirt with baggy blue jeans.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I was sent here to stop all this. What's the deal with it anyway?"

"There's nothing better to do in this stupid little town. Now, go away or I blast your brains out. He pulled a Magnum out of a holster.

"If you do that," I pulled out the button that would detonate all of the dynamite I had spawned. "I will push this button and this stupid little town will blow up. If I create some fun stuff in the town, will you take down all of your booby traps and stop doing what you're doing?"

"Hmmph. Fine. Lemme just tell everyone."

He walked over to his desk and picked up a microphone. "Hey, you guys, this is Austen. I got this guy here who wants us to stop terrorizing the town. I said yes, but only cause he's got explosives rigged everywhere and cause he promised us some fun. So meet in the main courtyard."

He stood up and told me to follow him. We went to the bottom of the building and went along the streets. We passed several platforms before we came to a big courtyard surrounded by apartments. Austen turned to me.

"So, what can you do for us?"

"What sport do you like?"

"Soccer's cool." (A/N Football for all you people not in America!)

"Kay. I'll make two goals and give you a big ball."

As other kids started to arrive, I pushed the "Props" button on my sleeve. The sleeve projected a hologram menu. I scrolled through all of the thumbnails until I found what I was looking for. I spawned a large blue dumpster.

It was spawned standing up, so I used my gravity gun to turn it onto its side. Now, the opening was the front, so it looked like a goal. I welded it firmly to the ground and did the same on the other side of the courtyard. Now, there were two goals, about 60 feet across from each other. I also spawned some benches for anyone who wanted to watch. I spawned a bright green bouncy ball, too. Then, I switched my toolgun to "Paint" and painted the lines on the field.

"Anything else?"

"Internet access?"

"Oh, right. Which building?"

Austen pointed to one of the buildings by the courtyard. "I want a computer with Internet access in every room."

"Are you kidding me? That'll take forever!" I yelled at him.

"Fine. We won't stop what we were doing."

I didn't reply. I just took out the detonator button and raised my finger over it.

"Okay, okay. Fine. Every other room on the first and second floors."

I used my physgun to rip the door to the apartment off again. "Hey! What was that for?" One of the kids yelled.

"I'll replace it later!"

I went into every other room on the first floor and spawned a desk. I welded the desk to the floor and spawned a computer monitor and desktop, both of which I welded to the desk. I also spawned a wooden chair. I did this in every other room on the floor, and did the same on the second floor. Finally, I spawned a vending machine at the end of the hallway.

"Hey, thanks a lot." Austen said.

--

I found Linda back in the courtyard, admiring my work on the soccer field. When she saw me, she couldn't stop thanking me. "Oh, thank you so much! I don't know what I would have done without you! Thank you so, so much!"

"You owe me 500 garry dollars."

Linda's smile disappeared faster than something that is very fast.

"500! Are you insane!?"

"Ma'am, do you realize how many times I could have been killed?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"I said before, no buts! If you don't pay me, I have no choice but to remove everything I built today."

"Oh, fine." Linda reached into her pocket and pulled out a wallet. She pulled out five hundred garry dollars and gave them to me.

"Thank you." I cleaned up all the dynamite I had spawned using a special button on my sleeve. Then, I sent myself back to gmflatgrass.

--

Upon arriving, I was very tired and spawned a mattress for myself. I plopped down on it and dozed off.


	3. Cherry Soda Drought Part 1: Revenge

**Cherry Soda Drought**

"Hey, sleepyheads! I'm Morris McDonald, and this is Garry's Mod News at 9. Let's check the forecast, followed by breaking news and traffic. Today, gmflatgrass should be the same as always. Overcast. Ravenholm will be seeing light showers on and off during the day. City 17, expect sunny skies with a forty percent chance of death, maybe doom, to one eighth of the population." Morris McDonald chuckled and continued.

"Cities 15 and 16 are scheduled to blow up today. Now, onto breaking news. Cities 15 and 16 are scheduled to blow up today. I heard something about something happening in Ravenholm, but who cares about that know-nothing town anyway? Traffic: Unless someone managed to get their old, beat up cars working, there shouldn't be any cars on the road whatsoever. Thank you for watching this edition of Garry's Mod news at 9, brought to you by Breen's Private Reserve. Introducing new lemon flavored soda, available everywhere October 15th. Breen's Private Reserve: Drink it or be killed."

--

Garry's Mod News was just about the most pointless and time wasting radio station in the history of the world. But it sometimes provided a preview of the kind of requests I could expect for the day. Since I only provided service to City 17, Ravenholm, and the surrounding vicinity, desperate people from Cities 15 and 16 couldn't call me and beg for help to not get blown up.

I stood up from my mattress and shut off the radio. I reached for the can of cherry soda on my desk.

It was already empty. No problem. I had about five more cans in my drawer., which had a metal lining so it doubled as a cooler. I opened and gaped at the drawer in horror. There was nothing there.

--

My heart pounded for about half a minute before I realized I could go onto the BPR website and order more to be instantly delivered. I started up my computer and went onto the Internet. I typed "breenspr.gov" and pressed enter.

A message showed up on the website. It read, "We're sorry, but we are undergoing scheduled site maintenance and will be back online in a day or so. If you wanted to order any of our products, please call 1-888-ORDERBREEN. Thank you."

I hated ordering by phone. First of all, there was no recording that would let you press certain buttons that would automatically order your soda for you. You had to talk to a live person, which meant that you would either be on hold for half a day, or you would be able to talk to someone, but they would be extreme pain in the asses and spend three quarters of the conversation trying to persuade you to buy something more than what you wanted to buy. I wasn't sure which was worse.

There was no other choice. I needed the cherry soda to function. The last time I had tried to work without soda in the morning, it had resulted in seven lawsuits and two angry mobs with pointy sticks.

I got out my cell phone and called the order hotline. Immediately, a recorded voice said, "In order to buy cherry soda through one of our knowledgeable-" I pressed one.

"Please hold. One of our knowledgeable staff will assist you shortly."

Instead of playing music, a persistent voice declared, "Breen's Private Reserve. If it's good enough for Breen, it's good enough for you! Now introducing cherry soda with half the sugar! Also pre-order our new lemon flavor."

Sheesh. This advertising was really getting on my nerves.

After five minutes, one of the "knowledgeable staff" came onto the line.

"So, you want to buy cherry soda? How many boxes?"

"Three."

"Three, huh? That would come to a total of-"

"43 dollars and 96 cents. I know."

"But I'll let you in on a deal we're having. If you spend over 40 dollars on soda, you automatically receive a discount of 5 dollars from your next purchase of twenty dollars or more. How 'bout it, eh?"

"No."

"Fine, Mr. Grumpypants. But I have another offer you can't refuse! If you buy a fourth pack, I'll throw a fifth in there for free! And you know what? The fourth box will be half price! You can't go wrong!"

"What's your name?"

"Uhh, it's Bob."

"Bob. Okay. I'm coming over to the BPR factory and offices and I am going to slap you so hard your grandchildren are gonna be dizzy!" I hung up. If they wanted to prevent me from buying anything, they could be that way. But I needed my soda! I remembered the map code of the BPR factory. d1bpr03. I had to go there and retrieve my soda.

I entered "d1bpr03" into my "go to" icon on my computer. The wind started to blow and I was sent off.

--

As the world started to return from whiteness, I could make out a huge factory with five smokestacks, each spewing dark, dark smoke into the sky. Environment killers.

I first wanted to tell that Bob guy what I though of him. Across the street from the factory were the offices. The only illumination on the street was a lone street light. I walked into the reception area of the office building. In a corner, a BPR vending machine stood. I didn't want to buy 36 cans from there, because it would take forever, and I doubted that it had that many.

The receptionist hardly looked up from the huge stack of papers in front of her.

"Can I help you?" She asked. Her voice was unpleasant and had a very nasal tone to it.

"I need to talk to one of your operators. His name is Bob."

The woman chuckled. "All of our operators say their names are Bob when a customer asks. Their real names are confidential. And I can't let you through for security reasons." She sat back and kept reading the papers on her desk.

I had an idea. I left the reception room and went outside. I pressed the NPC button on my sleeve. I spawned a Breen clone.

He just stood there, dumbly. There was no way he could do anything except stand or be killed. Only the real version of Breen could do anything.

I grabbed both arms of the "clone" and pushed him back into the reception room. I pressed a shotgun to his head. "I have your boss! Let me through or he dies!"

The receptionist hardly looked up. "Go ahead. Do you know how much this job pays? Hardly enough for me to buy a can of soda from that vending machine over there."

She continued reading her papers. This was ridiculous.

Since the Breen clone was of no use to me, I blew him across the room.

"Excuse me, you have to clean that up."

I pulled out my physgun and tore the security doors out of their frames. "I'll replace it later."

I walked past the alarmed receptionist and went up in an elevator.

--

The elevator doors opened to reveal long desk with tired-looking men sitting at the chairs. They each had a list of the special offers they could advertise. They were all talking into their head pieces.

I heard one saying, "No, ma'am. We don't do Chinese food delivery."

I chuckled. All of the voices blended together, making it impossible to single out on the opertaor I wanted to "deal with".

I scanned the rows of people. One of them looked like they would have the voice I heard. His real name was on a name tag on his desk. "Alan Greenbaum."

I tapped the man on the shoulder. He looked over at me, covering his earpiece. "I'll be with you in a second." He smiled and returned to his conversation.

I didn't want to wait. I tore the phone jack out of a socket in the floor.

"What on Earth was that for? That damage is deducted right from my paycheck!"

I ignored him and asked, "Did you talk to a man that threatened to slap you so hard that your grandchildren would be dizzy?"

"Why, yes. You meet some strange people in this job. But can I help you?"

I pulled back my arm and brought it across his face. He fell out of his chair and screamed.

The other operators looked up at me as the room fell silent. "What are you looking at, you little office rats?" I asked them. I pulled out an SMG. They all quickly returned to work and the room became noisy again.

"Owww." Alan groaned and stood up. I slapped him across the face again and ran out of the room. I descended in the elevator and came back into the reception room.

The receptionist was trying to lift one of the security doors back into the frame. I picked it up with my physgun.

"Oh, thanks."

I then proceeded to hurl the door out of the window. I walked out of the offices, yelling to her, "I'll replace it later!"

--

To be continued! (Also, check out the poll on my profile!)


	4. Cherry Soda Drought Part 2: All in Vain

**Cherry Soda Drought, Part 2**

**Hey, all you faithful readers! I deleted the announcement and am taking this off hiatus because I finished a story a few months ago. Now I will alternate updates to this and to "Seven Hours of Terror". Now, let's begin, mmkay? Mkay.**

I walked up to the factory entrance. A security guard sat at a table by the doors, fiddling with a Rubik's Cube. "ID, please."

"Uh, I'm from the plumbing company. We got a call that sewage was backing up in the employee break room."

"Oh, crap. Go right in. Don't let the sewage touch my stash of coffee!" The security guard yelled with apprehension. "It's in the rightmost cabinet, the one that smells kinda funky!"

"Okay, I'll make sure." I rolled my eyes.

As soon as I entered the building into the lobby, I saw three hallways. One read, "Soda Packaging", one read, "Soda Creation", and one read, "Soda Storage". In front of each hallway were guards and metal detectors.

--

"Sir, I'm going to have to confiscate your weapons." One of the guards said to me.

"Fine, but I'll need to keep these three. One of the shelves in your storage room broke and these will help me weld the metal back together." I held up my toolgun, physgun, and the sleeve.

The guard looked at me suspiciously. "Okay. Lemme take this off your hands for you, though." The guard grabbed my shotgun and revolver and placed them on a table. "Go right on through the metal detector."

I walked through. It beeped. I smiled, finding a way to annoy the security guards.

"Sir, what other metals do you have on you?"

"Well...I have this." I took an SMG out of one of the deep pockets in my coat. The guard placed it on the table. He told me to go through again.

I walked through, knowing the metal detector would beep again.

"SIR! Take ALL metals off of your person NOW!"

"Geez, relax." I knew that if I kept going, I'd get in some really deep poo. So, I took all weapons out of my pockets. One by one, I took out my crowbar, grenades, AR2, crossbow, gravity gun, rocket launcher, stun baton, and two S.L. which I knew I would never use anyway.

"How'd you fit all that in there?"

"Mary Poppins gave me her jacket. She said she found something better to use anyway."

One of the guards chuckled.

"Shut up." The others snapped.

"Go on through."

I walked through the double doors and into the storage room. My jaw dropped. Shelves and pallets stretched everywhere, left and right. The only colors I could see were blue, yellow, and red. There could have easily been a million cans in this warehouse. I took a step forward. The step echoed throughout the warehouse.

_Okay, just take the soda and leave, _I thought. I saw a pallet of cherry soda. Stamped on the cellophane bounding the cans together, a notice read, "Unauthorized removal of product will result in prosecution."

_How do they know I'm taking it away? _I thought. I looked around. I didn't see any cameras, and as far as I knew, they didn't have sensors anywhere. _Now, how am I going to take this back with me? _

Touching the pallet while going home would make my sleeve overheat. Just walking out with the pallet would make the guards pissed. And I had no magical portal gun, so...I needed to distract the guards.

There were so many ways to distract them, but there was one way which would make them feel like fools.

I spawned an Alyx Vance ragdoll on the ground. I picked her up by the head with the physgun, after setting the beam so that it would look invisible. Now, Alyx looked like she was standing straight without support. I dropped the ragdoll, continuing to the next phase of my odious plan.

"Good!" I smiled. Then, I spawned a boot. I picked it up and threw it at the entrance to the warehouse. Then, I scurried behind the pallet of soda and waited for the guards to open the door. A few seconds later, I heard the guards open the door. I switched my toolgun to spawn dynamite and came out of cover for a second to shoot a beam into the lobby, which was now visible because of the open door. The guards were too occupied with the boot to notice. I switched the tool gun to set the color of an object, and set it to invisible. I shot the dynamite with the color tool, so now the dynamite was invisible.

I picked up the Alyx ragdoll and moved her in front of the guards. In a high pitched voice, I said, "Hi, you guys! You're hot!"

The guards took their weapons out of their holsters and aimed it at the ragdoll. "Who the hell are you?" The guards asked, menacingly.

"I'll tell you if you kiss me!" I said.

I took out the detonation button for the dynamite.

The guards looked at her, smiling. "All right!" They cheered.

"Wait! Don't you want to see my magical powers first?"

"What would that be?"

"I make stuff blow up! Watch this!" I dropped the ragdoll and pushed the detonator.

--

The dynamite blew up, giving me a chance to escape. I spawned wheels on the pallet and drove it out of the building, the guards were too distracted to notice. After the pallet had driven out of the building, I sprinted out of the warehouse, ducking past the guards. I drove the pallet across the street to the offices of BPR. I ducked behind a tree in front and pulled the pallet behind the tree with me. Now, I had to figure out how to get back home.

I began to think for a while when a man in a blue jumpsuit walked by. He had the BPR logo emblazoned on his suit. He was a factory worker.

I tried to hide the pallet behind me and try to act innocent, but he looked at me for a few seconds and then asked me in a thick, foreign accent, "Are you trying to misplace soda?"

I had no guns, I couldn't threaten him, and I had no idea what he meant. My mind was going blank, so I just shook my head.

"Can you step to left, Mr. Sir?"

I realized he probably didn't know how to speak English too well. I shook my head.

"Then I need to E.T phone home guard men."

I stared at him. He pulled out a cheap cell phone.

"Wait, stop!" I stood aside, to reveal the pallets. I figured he meant he would call the guards.

He saw the pallet, then asked, "Why you misplacing soda?"

"I...the...I have no soda where I am." I answered. "Web site no work!"

He looked at me in confusion. "Breen Private Reserve website? It fixed five minute ago!"

Had he said the website had been fixed five minutes ago?

I roared and kicked the pallet. "Have your shit back!" I pushed the home button on my sleeve. "And tell your boss to go screw himself!"

EPILOGUE:

"Man on street say go screw yourself."

"That so? Come closer, you little scumbag. Do you know who I am? I am Wallace Breen, owner of you and everything else on the planet. So only do what I tell you to do, understood?"

"Go screw yourself."


	5. GmConstruct: The Apprentice

"Goddamn!" I scowled. While I was away, three more requests had found their way to my computer screen. The priority for one was "urgent", but two others were marked with a low priority. I opened the urgent message.

"I IS DROWIG! HELP ,MEEEE ILLL GIVE YUOU ANYTHIUNG JUST SAVR ME!!!1"

This person was either very desperate and wrote the message quickly or was just downright stupid. I never liked dealing with stupid people, and if I did deal with them, I ended up shooting them out of frustration.

The message was sent from gm-construct, and if I understood the message correctly, the situation involved something sinking in water. Gm-construct had a small lake that was deep enough to drown in.

Since I already had my equipment with me, I sent myself to gm-construct promptly.

--

After the loading had finished, I was outside the low building where I had shot the watermelon man. His corpse had cleared away.

I looked toward the lake. Someone was madly thrashing their arms and screaming. I ran to the lakeside and looked closer. A fat man was struggling to stay afloat on a square piece of driftwood. This person was turning out to be quite an idiot. I decided to save him anyway, I knew drowning was not the greatest way to die.

I went into action. I stood back and spawned a buoy in the water. The man frantically paddled towards the buoy and grabbed it.

"Okay, that'll be 500 dollars of work right there. If you want to get back on land..." I thought for a moment. "It'll be one grand more."

The man, who, only a few seconds ago was fighting for his life, stared at me. "Fifteen hundred Garry dollars? You money-grabbing bastard!" Angered, he rocked the buoy. It swung from side to side precariously, threating to throw him back into the water.

"Listen, in your application, you said you'd give me anything. Does one and a half thousand dollars fall into the category of "anything""?

"I-I was desperate! I didn't know...I didn't know what...I didn't know what I was doing! I'm sorry!"

"I don't want apologies, I want money. I am going to drag that buoy to land and I will _not _let you leave until I have fifteen hundred dollars in cash fattening up my back pocket. Understand?"

"Yes." At that, I spawned a hydraulic rope on the buoy and connected it to the wall next to the lake. I operated the rope so that it yanked the buoy out of the water and onto concrete.

The man jumped off the buoy and ran towards me, half crying and half gasping for breath. He tried to hug me, but I pulled out my crowbar and gave him a solid whack to the kneecaps. He crumpled to the ground.

"Money first, praise later." He didn't seem to care that his knees were now bone salad. He was so thankful he just grabbed a soggy wallet from his pocket and handed it over to me.

"You can take it all, thanks so much!" I counted the bills madly. In that wallet was about 6,000 Garry dollars worth of wealth _and_ a credit card. I grinned and put the wallet in my pocket.

"Now, what were you doing in that lake anyway, holding on to a piece of wood?" I helped him up and gave him a health vial for his knees.

"Well, I had built an airplane out of an old Soviet tank, a microwave, and a few cans of soda. Unfortunately, about 300 feet up, I hit some kind of invisible barrier and the plane blew up. I fell into the lake."

"Where the hell did you get a Russian tank?"

"You find amazing things in junkyards."

"I guess so. But...you...you built an airplane? I can't even do that! How did you know how to build it?"

"I don't know, I just make stuff up as I go. You know there's a saying that says that if you put enough monkeys in front of a typewriter, one will eventually beat the works of Shakespeare. Or something like that, my mom said that while-" He noticed my astounded look. "You all right?"

"Listen... do you want to work with me?" I couldn't believe the words that came out of my mouth. I worked alone and swore that I always would when I started the whole business. I would get more money that way and everything would be done the way I wanted it to be done. Why had I asked for help?

"Um, I'd love to. I don't have any other job anyway, unless you count dumpster diving as a job..."

I thought it over. On the plus side, this guy was smart enough to build an airplane out of junkyard parts. On the minus side, he blew it up on accident. I, for one, knew that at a certain altitude in this map, there was an invisible ceiling. I also didn't need to search a scrapyard for parts, it was all there on my sleeve. With my logic and equipment and his creativity...

"We'll make quite a team." I smiled and held out my hand for shaking. He shook it enthusiastically.

"Aren't you gonna teach me how you work?"

"I guess I have to. But first, your name?"

"Otis."

Okay then, Otis. Grab my wrist." When he had done so, I pushed the, "HOME" button and we were sent away.

When we came to gm-flatgrass, Otis released his breath. I guessed he had never been carried away by a huge wind into a foreign place. To poke fun at him, I grabbed his arm.

"I-I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto."

"Shut up. My name is Otis." I chuckled.

"Well, this is my office if you want to call it that." I waved my arm toward my desk. There were no new help requests. After showing Otis how I ran the whole thing, I talked to him about my philosophy and my deep hatred of stupid people. I taught him all of the features of my equipment.

"For this next job, you should just observe. Don't talk to the client or anything like that, okay?"

"I guess that's fine."

I opened up the help request. It read, "I'm racing my neighbor tomorrow in the annual Junk Car derby. I need your help to build me a super fast vehicle. And hey, I'll throw in extra cash if you make it deadly. You know, with guns and stuff. I really hate my neighbor. You can name your price, but if I win I'll give you half of the prize money which is 1,000,000 Garry dollars."

I felt a bit of drool sliding down my chin. This guy was not only smart but the rewards were enormous! I looked at the location and found it to be gm-racetrack, the largest track in the world. One lap was 5 miles long and the Junk Car derby was 10 laps long. I had heard that the stadium sat 250,000 people. This was indeed a big job.

"Well, that's not fair." Otis grumbled.

"We don't have much time. Gm-racetrack, here we come!" I typed the map name into my computer and waited for the wind to take us to our fortune.


	6. GmRacetrack: Building in the Fog

"Good god." Otis gasped. We were standing on the grass inside of the track, where RVs would later set themselves up during the race. It was extremely foggy, the stadium seats were not visible. It seemed like the weather had just changed on Gm-flatgrass and became very foggy.

"So where's our guy?" I tried to look for a figure in the fog, but I saw nothing.

"Was he even supposed to meet up with us?" Otis asked.

"That's common etiquette, I sure hope he came along. Otherwise, I might end up building a car he somehow doesn't like, and whooooooo...there goes half a million dollars, down the drain." I spun around and bent my knees to make it seem like I was water circling a sink drain. "On the other hand, we could build something now and if he doesn't like it, I can blame it on-"

"Shush!" Otis interrupted. "You see that?" He pointed toward a dim light in the fog. It became brighter and brighter until I could see the outline of a person. The outline became clearer and clearer. Now, a man was clearly visible.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought you're a team of one." The man pointed to me.

"Well, I was. I decided I needed another employee, but don't worry, he's just tagging along to watch. Anyway, your name?"

"It's Michael. You know, like that German dude. What's his name...Shoemaker, Shitmoocher..."

"Michael Schumacher?" Otis suggested.

I gave Otis a kick to the shins.

"Yeah, him. Anyway, that's who I'm named after." Michael said.

"Don't talk to the client." I reminded Otis.

"What's that?" Michael looked at me.

"Oh, nothing. So, are we gonna get back to business, or are we going to get stuff done?" The conversation was going off topic.

"Right, the car. So, I need something big to intimidate the competitors, I need something fast to win the race, I need something deadly to kill my neighbor, and it needs headlights because they say the fog won't lift until Sunday. Can you do it?"

"So...just a recap. You want your car to be big and armed to the teeth but you want it to be faster than the other cars? Can't you just ask for guns to blow everyone up with? Then you wouldn't need a fast car since everyone else will already be dead."

"No. Absolutely not." Michael answered. "I want both."

"It'll cost you." I started crunching numbers in my head.

"How much?"

"Two hundred thousand."

"One fifty."

"One seventy-five."

"Deal." Michael and I shook hands and I set to work.

--

The first order of business was to light up the place, it was far too dark to see anything. I switched my toolgun to spawn bright lamps on the ground around the workplace. Once it was lit up, I started thinking how I could make something big but keep it fast. What did I have that supported extremely heavy things but let it move around freely? I remembered learning somewhere that hydrofoils were boats that practically hovered above water, letting them...go...faster.

"Hoverballs." I said it loud.

"Excuse me?" Michael asked.

"Hoverballs! That's it! I'll attach hoverballs to the car! And then I'll put the thrusters... the turrets...a tank...oh yes. I am onto something."

Immediately, I spawned a tank on the ground. "Whoa! Where did that come-"

"God." I interrupted. I had been asked this question far too many times.

"Huh?"

"God has too many tanks so he decided to give me one. Now please let me work." How it was at the moment, the tanks had no wheels or treads, the gun didn't work, and the driver's compartment had no controls. The body was the only thing the tank had. But that was going to change.

I lifted the tank up a few feet with the physgun and pushed another button to make it stay in midair. I switched the toolgun to spawn hoverballs and I attached one in every spot where the tank wheels should be. To make them work, I got out a keypad with the numbers 0-9. I used the hoverball options on the toolgun to link the buttons 9 and 3 to the hoverballs. Now, if Michael pushed nine, the hoverballs would push up and make the tank float higher. If he pushed three, the hoverballs would make the tank go down.

I decided to test it. I gave the keypad to Michael and released the tank from the temporary lock I had put on it with the physgun. "Push nine." I told Michael. He did so and the tank shot up about twenty feet.

"Whoa! Don't hold the button, just push it."

"I did just push it."

"Okay then, push three really quickly so it doesn't crash into the ground." Michael pushed three for just a split second and the hoverballs brought the tank back to eye level. I reviewed the parameters of the hoverballs and realized that their strength was much too high. I removed the supercharged hoverballs and attached new ones that were slightly weaker.

"Now the tank won't shoot up when you want to change the hover height."

"Okay, good. How about the actual movement now?"

"Fine, fine. Patience." From here, it was pretty straightforward. Attach thrusters on the back of the tank, for moving forward, on the front of the tank for braking, and on the sides for steering.

With a deep breath, I switched the toolgun to a thruster tool and went thruster crazy. They didn't need to be attached in any particular pattern, horsepower is, after all, horsepower.

--

Once the thrusters in the back were set, I linked them to the "8" key. I didn't want to test them yet, god knows how far the car would go. I'd have to search for it in the fog.

Next came the steering thrusters, I attached 15 on the front left side of the tank and linked them to the "6" key. Pressing six would make the car turn right. I attached fifteen on the other side and linked the thrusters to 4. Steering was taken car of. All that was left were the thrusters up front. I attached three to the front and linked them to 5.

"You ever play computer games?" I asked Michael.

"Yeah. Does Pac-Man count?"

"How do you control Pac-Man?" I asked.

"With the arrow keys."

"That's how you're going to move your car. The buttons that control movement of your vehicle are arranged on the number pad in the same way as arrow keys. Press 8 to go forward, 5 to brake, 4 to go left and 6 to go right."

"What about weaponry?"

"I'm getting there now." And I was. I switched the toolgun to spawn turrets. A quick adjustment of the turret properties resulted in a super lethal laser firing turret that shot ten laser pellets every time it was fired. I told this to Michael.

"Now, is that the firepower you want?"

Michael was speechless. "I...I guess." I spawned a turret on the front of the tanks' barrel and linked it to 7.

All that was left now were headlights. I spawned two at the front of the tank and linked them to 1. I handed the completely programmed keypad to Michael.

"Before you can hop in and test it, I'm going to attach a camera to the tank and have the feed come through on a little monitor I'll attach inside. That way, you can see where you're going."

I spawned a blank monitor on the ground. I climbed on top of the tank and clambered inside. I welded the monitor to the front of the empty cockpit. I climbed out and spawned a camera between the two headlights. As soon as the camera was in place, the screen lit up. Unfortunately, nothing but fog was visible on the screen. I told Michael to push one and activate the headlights. The light was extremely bright, but all it did was make the thick fog yellow instead of gray. I sighed. The only ground that was visible was ground two or three meters away.

"It's gonna be one hell of a drive." I told Michael. I took the key pad from him and welded it right next to the monitor.

"It's all right, I've been training for tomorrow for the past seven years."

"Okay. Well, I'll leave you to practice with the tank. Tomorrow, you owe me 675 grand if you win. I'm going to go back home and prepare for tomorrow. Come on, Otis."

"Don't you mean 1,175,000?" I stared at Michael.

"Where did you pull that number out from? Isn't half the prize money 500,000 dollars?"

"No, half of the prize money is one million dollars."

Otis and I both gasped. I remember that in his request, Michael had offered me "Half of the prize money which is one million dollars." I now understood the situation. My knees trembled. With that kind of money, I could retire!

"O-okay, I'll see you tomorrow then. Pleasure doing business with you." I shook his hand and mentioned for Otis to grab my arm.

All this time, Otis had been watching me work intently as he sat on the grass. He stood up, held my arm, and I sent ourselves back home.

--

As soon as we arrived, I turned to Otis. "Go call the raceway and get two tickets for tomorrow's race. Make sure we get the front row, I don't care how much it costs."

Otis pulled out a cell phone and called the ticketing service. Meanwhile, just in case something went wrong, I loaded my crossbow.

**This was one of my longer chapters, as there was a lot to build. I tried to make it less boring by inserting playful dialog, but the point of this chapter was building. The next chapter is for the actual race. **

**And folks, this tank has been built by me on G-Mod. I cannot tell you yet if it works or not, although you can build it yourself and see. :)**


	7. GmRacetrack: Spectator Disruption

I woke up early, drank from my recently-renewed cherry soda stash, and poured the rest on Otis. His eyes snapped open.

"What the hell was that for?" Otis angrily asked as he expelled soda from his nostrils and sat up.

"To wake you up. We're watching Michael race today. And we're gonna watch him _win_."

"Why are you so confident?" Otis shook soda out of his ear.

"Because I built his car. _And _I'm gonna shoot his competitors if they get too far ahead." I held up the crossbow.

"Is that even legal?"

"It's not like I'll get sued! Now come on, let's go to the track and meet Michael before the race starts. You have the tickets?"

"They're at the 'Will Call' place."

"Oh, great! So we're ready to go?" I slung my crossbow over my back.

"Yep."

I walked over to my computer. Remembering where we ended up last time when I entered "gm-racetrack", I entered the code "gm-race-enter" into the computer.

--

"Good god, when does the race start?" I asked.

"Two hours." he responded. We were at the entrance to the track. A huge sign over the entrance read, "Garry's Mod Racetrack: Proud Host of the Annual Junk Car Derby".

There were already throngs of people lining up in front of the box office. Ticket scalpers were trying to sell us tickets for "half price", but they backed off when they saw the crossbow on my back.

We walked over to the "Will Call" booth and picked up our tickets after about fifteen minutes of waiting. After we had the tickets, we passed through the crowds and went into a door with the stamp, "Racers only!" I opened the door and went down a few sets of stairs.

We went through another door to find ourselves inside an enormous room beneath the track. Racers were doing final checks on their cars and wheeling them over to lifts which most likely led up to the starting point.

"There's Michael! Otis pointed to a corner of the room. Michael was wiping the tank with a cloth. He looked quite wimpy compared to many of the other racers who were welding things to their cars and fixing things under the hood.

We walked through the room and got to Michael. His eyes widened when he saw us.

"You're not allowed down here!" he said.

"Trust me, you'd regret it if I didn't come down here. The reason I came is to give you a walkie-talkie. That way, you can communicate with me. If someone gets ahead of you and your turrrets jam, for example, just give me a shout and I'll take care of them." I spun around and showed him the crossbow.

"It's illegal for spectators to affect the outcome of the race in any way." Michael stated.

"Eh, I can just shoot the engine and we can call it a freak accident." I smiled. Michael just stared at me. I handed him the walkie-talkie.

"So, did you test out the car yesterday?"

"Yeah. It drives great, drifting turns are going to be a breeze. It's also really fast, I finished a lap in like two minutes."

"Did you try using the turrets?"

"Nah. What is there to see? As far as I understand, they're just gonna spray bullets every which way."

"Well, good luck then. See you after the race." As we turned around to leave, the intercom in the room crackled to life.

"Race begins in five minutes, boys. Finish up and get your cars up to the track."

--

As we came back through the "Racers Only!" door, I heard the announcer addressing the crowd. "Welcome to the thirty-second annual Junk Car Derby, sponsored by Breen's Private Reserve. It's a beautiful day for racing," The announcer paused to let the crowd chuckle a bit. "as seven of the world's most creative builders put their finest creations to the test in an epic fifty mile race on the world's largest track! Yes sir, this is a huge event! Please remember that this event is being professionally videotaped, so we ask of you to not take video. We also ask that you find your assigned seat and go there if you have not done so already. So sit back, relax, buy a hotdog, maybe even a cool, refreshing can of Breen's Private Reserve and enjoy!" The crowd applauded as racers began to slowly drive their vehicles to the starting line. We hurried over to our front row seats and got settled. The fog had lifted somewhat.

After the announcer gave the names of the racers, he said, "Racers! STAAAAART YOUR ENGINES!" I heard revving coming from the cars. "GET SET!" My heart began to beat faster. "GO! Go go go go!" Deafening cheering erupted as the racers passed us by, much too quickly for me to see who was in which place. However, we had Michael for answering that question. I pulled out my walkie talkie.

"Michael! What place are you in?"

A few seconds later, he replied. "Either third or fourth, I can't tell which. It's no big deal, the race only started."

"Why can't you just shoot them?"

"I feel like that's-" I heard a crash through the walkie talkie and shot up from my seat.

"You alright? Michael!"

"I'm fine, one of the other racers just bumped me." A short pause followed, and then, "I feel like shooting is cheating. I won't do that 'til the end, when everyone is desperate to win. And for future reference, listen to the announcer to know what's going on, all you're doing is distracting me."

"Sorry, geez." I put the walkie talkie down. I fidgeted in my seat. I was helpless. I couldn't do anything except sit in the chair and listen to the rapid-fire announcer.

"Firenzo is holding his lead securely! Oh, my goodness! What's this? Hernandez is coming in on the inside in his speedster! They're neck and neck, tied for first! Looks like there's some shoving going between them, AND FIRENZO SHOOTS AHEAD! That was a phenomenal try by Hernandez. Firenzo is making the gap larger and larger between himself and the rest of the group! Could we have an early winner?"

"What does he mean, 'early winner'?" I turned to Otis, who was devouring a corn dog. He shrugged and licked his stick clean. He yelled to a passing soda vendor for a regular soda. He seemed more interested in the food than the money at stake.

I got on the walkie talkie again. "Michael, is it possible to win before completing all the laps?"

"Yes, if you finish your first lap half a mile ahead of the car in second place. Now let me-" I heard another crash, this one larger.

"Ouch, looks like Jackson gave a brutal shove to Hernandez in his tank!"

I did a double take. "Your last name is what, exactly?" I asked Michael.

"Yes, it's what you think it is. Just let me drive."

"Could Jackson have a shot at second place? It looks like-YES! Jackson takes second place! Not even the first mile and we got a race full of action in there!"

"Nice job." I told Michael.

"I am honestly going to sit on this walkie talkie. You do your job, I'll do mine."

"I don't have a job right now."

"Even better! Just sit down, shut up, and watch."

–

"The racers have gotten in their line, folks. Usually there are no attempts to pass one another due to a certain tradition. This is where it calms down until the last mile. But don't despair! We have plenty of in-seat entertainment until things heat up. First, you may have noticed on the back of your tickets a blank line with "attendance" in front of it. At this point, please write down the number of people you think attended today's race. Upon leaving the raceway, deposit your ticket in one of the numerous collection boxes set up at the exits. The closest guesser wins a free ticket to an event of their choice at the Garry's Mod Raceway."

"Sounds dumb." I said to Otis. He swallowed his mouthful of cracker jack and asked why.

"Because I never win!" I folded my arms and frowned.

"I almost won a pizza at a hockey game, delivered by the mascot. They called my seat and my row, but not my section."

"My goodness, it appears we have some action going on in the race! Jackson is right on Firenzo's tail! He's trying to pass him!" I heard the crowd gasping as the announcer spoke up.

"What's he doing?" Otis asked between mouthfuls of cracker jack.

"He's coming in on the outside! Oh my god! Firenzo is trying to bump him back, Jackson is persistent! They're neck and neck, OUCH! Firenzo just gave a brutal shove to Jackson! He's spinning out of control! He might hit the wall!"

"There he is!" I saw the cars start to appear in the fog. There was Michael's tank, spinning around but still going forward.

"Get control of the vehicle!" I said to Michael.

"I can't! I'm going too fast!" The racers sped by us.

"Just open fire! I screamed into the walkie talkie. A few seconds later, the announcer spoke again.

"Looks like Jackson is using on board weapons as a last resort! None of the bullets seem to be hitting their mark!"

At this point, I pulled my crossbow off my back and shot off of my chair. I ran out of my row and down the aisle to the fence which separated the spectators from the track. Ushers tried to stop me, but I shoved them aside along with a vendor of frozen lemonade. I reached the chain-link fence and started to climb up. Security guards were running towards me.

I reached the top of the fence and vaulted over. Running out onto the track, I looked through the scope and tried to make out the racers in the fog.

"What's this? A spectator has made it onto the track, bearing some kind of weapon!"

"HELP! I'm overheating!" Michael screamed. "I-" Then there was static.

"Oh, god! Jackson's vehicle has exploded!" The announcer yelled.

Security hopped the fence and tackled me before I could shoot. "Otis! Help!" He gave me a helpless look and shrugged as I was dragged off.

--

"How are you?" Otis asked. He sat on one side of a visitor's booth at the Garry's Mod jail, talking through a phone. The only thing separating me from him was a bulletproof sheet of glass.

"I was tackled to the ground face first, I got a concussion when police threw me into their car, I have six pending lawsuits, they took my tools, I have a rash from this goddamn jail suit, and I had diarrhea last night from the food they served. Oh yeah, my cellmate is a rapist. How are you?"

"I've been talking to the media, to your angry, no, furious former client who has been hospitalized with _fourth _degree burns and lacerations, to your MOM for Pete's sake, and to that annoying jail guard who wouldn't let me talk to you. Not to mention the fact that the bank wants to confiscate ALL the money you earned, so I can't bail you out or pay for a lawyer unless someone else turns up the money. If only I had your tools, I could try starting my own business and-"

"That's it!"

"What's it?"

"You don't need your tools! You're an awesome builder without them! How much is my bail?"

"Now, its three quarters of a million."

I sighed. "Well, at least I'm valuable. When do you think you can come up with that money?"

Otis gave it some thought. "A month."

I stared at him. "It takes me that long to turn up that money in a year, at best!"

"What if someone offers lots of money, like Michael?"

"This is the only time a client has offered me over one hundred thousand dollars for a job. Don't count on finding someone like Michael."

"I'll get by. Can you bear sleeping with your rapist cellmate and having diarrhea for a month?"

I smiled. "It'll be an interesting experience. Good luck, then." Otis stood up and walked out of the visitor room.

_**Now I'll be writing from Otis's perspective. You'll get lots of building and destroying, but done in a different manner. I hope you enjoy the next chapter!**_

_**Also note that my new laptop arrived halfway through writing this story. I started using the new laptop after this line:**_

"**Eh, I can just shoot the engine and we can call it a freak accident."**


	8. GmBeachcity: Scamming the Rich

There had to be a lot of changes before I could pick up my partner's work. The bank had spared me five thousand dollars to get started.

If I was to turn up 750 grand within a month, I'd need customers. Lots of customers. I first called up a blimp rental compay and requested that an ad be flown over the most populated maps. That took a huge chunk out of the money. Then, I called a junkyard and asked how much I would need to gain access to the things there. After that, I had a little less than five dollars left which I would most likely spend on caffeine pills.

Before I had left to the race, there were still a few requests. They hadn't gone anywhere, and unfortunately no new requests had been posted.

I took a look at the oldest request. The body of the message read, "There's a bully at my kid's school. He teases my kid all the time. Both the bully and my child have been building model boats for our town's boat race down the river. Unfortunately, my child doesn't know the first thing about building boats and neither do I. So, instead of building a boat, I want a discreet device that'll blow up the bully's boat when it comes around. I know he'll be crushed."

I smiled. When I was a kid, I could have sure used a service that made the things I was about to build.

This person lived on a map named "gm-beachcity". I hastily picked up the sleeve that would allow me to go home. Only as a last resort would I access the parts on the sleeve.

I typed the map name into the computer and was sent off.

--

I touched down in a perfectly kept beach. It was almost scary how white the sand was, how perfectly spaced the ripples in the sand were. Along the edge of the beach were enormous houses.

There was no one one around. I looked out onto the ocean. A tiny boat was out at sea, but other than that, the sea was empty.

I walked along the row of houses. The only sound was the waves breaking and gliding along the sand.

"I'll give them five minutes." I said out loud. I plopped down on the sand and ran my fingers through it.

–

"Hey. Dumbass. Wake up." My eyes shot open. A shirtless, bald, burly man stood over me. He was chewing something.

"Huh?" I guessed I had dozed off.

"Huh? Huh? Huh? Don't be a smart ass. You the guy I sent for?"

I got to my feet. I stood nearly two feet above this man. "I think...so."

"Oh, good. They sent a beach bum!" He crossed his arms, albeit with difficulty.

"Are you the person that sent in the request about the boat race?"

"Ha! Yeah, but man, you're gullible! You really think I have a son? Dammit, I hate kids!"

"I...don't know what to think, honestly."

The man grunted and said nothing more.

"So if you don't have a son, what do you want?"

"Wait, wait, wait. So you're the-you're the handyman?"

"Yeah."

"Huh." The man turned his head and squirted tobacco juice onto the sand. He resumed chewing. "Ya got fatta."

"I-I don't think I'm the same person who came to you last time."

"Ya alsa got wimpier."

I clenched my jaw. "What do you need help with?" I saw that the little boat I had seen at sea was now run aground on the beach.

_How long had I been asleep?_ I thought.

"I'm planning a heist."

"A what?"

"I'm gonna rob these houses!" He gestured to the enormous beach mansions.

"Why?"

"Jesus Chr-BECAUSE THE PEOPLE THAT LIVE THERE GODDAMN PISS ME OFF!" The man stomped his foot.

"So what do you need me for?" I took a step back.

"I need ya to become friends with the people that live there. Get inside their houses, and...y'know, gimme some info on the layout of their place. That way, I'll know the best way ta sneak in."

"Why can't you just do that yourself and-"

The man cut me off. "Hey, I pay ya, you do it. Okay?"

I hesitated. "Okay."

"Great! I'll steal s'much as I can and give you a fourth of it."

"A third."

"What?"

"I gotta keep a business going, right?"

The man spit out more tobacco and grinned. "You drive a hard bargain. One third." He stuck out his meaty hand to seal the deal. "Meet me back here tomorrow, same time, same place." I'd start at the yacht club, down the beach a mile or so. They're havin some kinda rich person party. Y'know, champagne and strippers."

–

Halfway to the yacht club, I looked down at my clothes. How on earth was I supposed to get in with a paint-stained t-shirt and faded work jeans? I reached into my pocket and pulled out some change. It amounted to 3.50, just enough to buy a plastic cufflink.

I stuffed the money back into my pocket in disgust. I kept walking, trying to think up a way to gain admittance into the party.

By the time I had arrived at the party, I had a perfect plan. I corrected my posture, puffed out my chest, and strode past a sign which read, "Garry's Mod Yacht Club. No Ship, No Suit, No Service." I walked straight past the double doors into a reception room. Past another door, I heard jazz music and the joyous clinking of glasses.

"Sir, do you need directions?"

I put on my best rich voice. "Directions? Ha! I'm attending the party!"

The receptionist raised an eyebrow quizzically. "We have a dress code."

"Oh? Well, I have a law firm and I'd be more than willing to look into why you won't let me in!"

The receptionist sat back, unfazed. "Sir, past those doors are people ten times richer than _you_ who can take away everything you own without batting an eye. Now, I'll need proof that you do in fact own a yacht and you'll need to put on something more fitting. If you can't, the exit is right behind you. And what is that on your arm?" She pointed to the prop sleeve.

I leaned up against her desk and looked her straight in the eye.

"Ma'am, I don't think you quite realize who I am."

"Okay, who are you?"

I smiled. "I'm Garry Newman."

The receptionist stared at me. "Garry Newman, the guy who can make stuff appear out of nowhere and built everything everywhere?"

I nodded.

"Okay...make this pencil disappear." The receptionist took a pencil out of her pencil holder and laid it on the desk.

The remover tool was a feature of the toolgun, which I had left at "home".

"Unfortunately, I didn't take the tool which will allow me to do that. I really do not have time for this. I have people to talk to in there."

"No. If you don't leave now, I'm calling security."

"If you call security..." I thought for a moment. My eyes settled on the prop sleeve. "...I'll flood this room with watermelons."

"You'll what?"

"I will create watermelons non stop until they fill this room and suffocate us both." To show her I was not joking around, I pulled up a hologram menu from my sleeve and pushed the water melon button. A blue sphere materialized on top of the reception desk. It turned greener until a plump, juicy watermelon sat on the desk. I pushed the button twice more.

"Okay, stop! I believe you. Go right in."

"Thank you. I trusted you would understand." I smiled and pulled open the doors.

In front of me was a gigantic banquet hall. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. At one wall was a full bar. On another was a long mahogany desk with a sign which read, "Sign ups for 2010 Garry's Mod Yacht Race."

There had to be at least a hundred and fifty people, conversing in small clumps while sipping champagne from Champagne.

I remembered something my father told me. "To be rich, you gotta act it."

There was no time to get rich at the moment, but if I pretended enough, people would believe me. I took a glass of champagne off of the tray of a passing waiter and walked straight up to a group of men in my age group.

"Hello, boys!" I sloshed the champagne in my glass. "The bubbly's a bit dry today, no?"

"Who are you?"

"Why, I'm Garry Newman! Surely, you must recognize me!"

"You don't look like the guy on the bill." One of the men took a one hundred dollar bill out of his pocket and held it by my head. "I don't see the resemblance."

"Well, I did pack on the pounds during my recent trip to my villa in France."

"Hey, you're right! My god! Well! Garry Newman." The men looked at me in amazement.

"Oh, come now, I can't even blend in here!"

The men laughed. "Well, you might have more luck with a tux!" It wasn't funny, but I laughed.

"So, what kind of yacht do you own? A cruiser? A racer? Luxury?"

"Luxury, of course! Yacht racing is so overrated, why bother with it? And those cruisers...you can hardly turn around in one!" I hoped to god I was getting the terminology right.

"I hear you. I bought a racer, but I gave it to a friend. Can you believe that they can put twin 10 horsepower outboarders on a vessel and call it a racing yacht?"

"Now that...is ridiculous." I shook my head. "How about you? How many do you have?" I addressed the whole group.

"I bought a 93 footer for my daughter for her sweet sixteen. I don't know why sixteen is so significant, but it's important...somehow. I figured it would be the right choice. Now I need to sign her up to get her license from the G-Mod Yachting Authority.

The other men showered him with sympathy.

"Oh, good luck with that!"

"The GMYA make it next to impossible to get licensed nowadays, don't they?"

"Wow, a license? Yeah, right!"

This was my opportunity. "You know, I own the Garry's Mod Yachting Authority. I can speed up the process by seeing her personally and licensing her myself."

"Would you really?" The man with the daughter asked.

"Of course! I know how much of a pain it can be to get through all the red tape. Think of it as my birthday present to her."

"Thank you so much! When's the easiest time for you to come?" He pulled a PDA out of his pocket.

"I can come after the party, I'm free tonight."

"Wow, what's the catch?" The man chuckled and put away his PDA.

_You'll see._ I smiled. "No catch."

"Hey, this party is pretty much done anyway, we can leave now. My name's Max."

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Garry."

"Damn, you're lucky today, Max! Garry Newman personally getting you a license!" The other men waved goodbye as Max and I walked out of the yacht club.

–

We strolled along the beach in the dark. It was time to weasel some information out of Max. "How big is your house?"

"It's 225,000 square feet of beauty.

"Jesus, how do you secure 225,000 square feet? I have a big house, but not _that _big."

"I got the basics. Vibration sensors on the fence, guard dogs, armed guards, surveillance cameras everywhere, and inside the house it's your typical arm-disarm security system."

"Good god! That's a lot, even for a big house!"

"Well, I also need to secure some original Renoir paintings. My wife bought 24 karat gold tableware for the master dining room. Gold looks nice, but it sure is a bitch to clean.

I laughed. "Yeah, I get where you're coming from."

"I also made something like half a million in cash from a recent deal of mine. We put it in our vault yesterday, and my daughter changed the code to lock my wife and I out of it. Kids these days, I tell you."

We walked on in silence for a few more minutes.

"Here we are. 34 Seabreeze Parkway."

I looked up towards the beachside house as my jaw dropped.

**What's that? I'm a no good rotten cheater for leaving you so long? I know. I got stuck in writing this chapter, but that's been worked out. The inspiration that got me through the snag was actually my recent trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the rich person capital of the world. **

**Now, to continue Barney Begins!**


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